


Hyde and Seek

by IAmNotGoodatthisnamingthing



Series: Hyde_Chronicles [2]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Gen, conman AU, this basically wrote itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 16:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14752406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmNotGoodatthisnamingthing/pseuds/IAmNotGoodatthisnamingthing
Summary: At first Ravi goes missing, and then Hyuk almost gets stabbed with a knife. All in a matter of 2 hours.Or,How drunk 5VIXX loses Ravi in a market, and Hyukfinallyjoins the team.Leo is not amused by any of this.





	Hyde and Seek

**Author's Note:**

> Just expanding the Conman AU further~ Hope you enjoy!

It’s a windy evening in Guangzhou and they are 2 hours away from meeting Hyuk, but the team is oblivious to the fact and mostly, stupidly drunk.

 

5 men with an average height of 6’0’’ walking through a night market is enough to guarantee second glances from casual passersby, but 5 tall guys all dressed in black and _giggling_ as they trampled through a night market, well Leo can’t be unimpressed enough.

 

“Relax,” N says calmly, happily, snaking his hand around Leo’s shoulder and squeezing once.

 

“We’ve just completed a mission, and we have nothing lined up for another couple of weeks, so let loose. It’s our vacation, so just...let loose, yeah?” With that, N leaves him and latches onto Ken, who is in the middle of bargaining with an old lady over some cotton candy.

 

Okay, so being above ground and not-exactly-sober may not be the entire reason why Leo was in such a foul mood.

 

Ken had been ignoring him the entire evening, and the past two days – something about Taekwoon taking needlessly reckless risks – and had instead sat between Ravi and Bin during their barbeque dinner. He’d spent the evening feeding Ravi from his own chopsticks and shoving shots of Red Bull, Mountain Dew and Beer at Bin (who could not get drunk on alcohol, but lost his hand-eye-coordination with enough sugar in his system), and had left Leo at the mercy of an increasingly drunk and clingy N.

 

Even now, Ken was walking with one arm wrapped around N’s waist and the other tucked over Bin’s shoulder, who happened to be hanging off Ken’s shoulder like a starstuck sharp-witted koala. Leo was furious, and frustrated, and _wait…where is Ravi_?

 

“Guys,” he stopped in his tracks to scan their surroundings. “I think we lost Ravi.”

 

Ken, impervious to both alcohol and sugar, is the first to stop walking, but N is the one who turns around sharply, almost losing his balance.

 

“What do you mean?” he asks, only slightly slurring his words. “Wasn’t he holding onto your beltloops?”

 

“He was, but then he wanted to clean his Mickey Mouse watch, so he started to look through his backpack,” Leo explains, thinking back to 10 minutes ago. “And then, you bought me nuggets, so I…forgot?”

 

“Oh God,” N says, eyes going wide. “The tracker!”

 

 _Oh shit_ , is all Leo can think.

 

The agency fits every agent with trackers as soon as they graduate from the academy and enter service. Just as a precaution, to track down and _take care of_ agents who go rogue. The trackers aren’t the kind you see in movies, easily implantable and easily removable. These are fitted as a ring, banded around the carotid artery. Self-extraction would mean suicide, so very few agents every attempt the impossible, and most agents stays loyal to their cause.

 

But as Hyde agents, they – N, Leo, Ken, Ravi and Bin – along with 6 other “special skills” teams, are fitted with a different tracker. One that connects them to the team lead – N, in this case – and warranties a messy death by detonation if someone happens to be 5 miles away from the lead when the tracker is activated. Essentially, N is really the only one in the team being tracked by the agency, the rest of them connected to his tracker, and as protocol calls, he had activated all their trackers before they had come on their night market excursion. Which means that if Ravi – drunk and distracted – decided to explore this vast market on his own, it would be a matter of distance before he’d drop dead and activate his dormant agency tracker, alerting the local cleanup team for a speedy extraction.

 

“Can you turn it off?” Leo asks, stepping closer to the trio who were still huddled together.

 

“Yes, if I was back at base,” N says, brain busy calculating their next steps.

 

“Ken?” Leo asks instead, looking at ~~his~~ their technology expert.

 

“I could if I had access to a capable phone and decent Wifi, but I’m not carrying anything tonight” Ken apologizes, meeting Leo’s eyes for the first time in 2 days.

 

“Will this do?” Bin asks, holding up the latest edition of the iPhone he had nicked from a pedestrian who just happened to walk by.

 

“Yes,” Ken says gleefully, affectionately pinching his cheek. “I’m going to need 8 minutes to exactly locate him,” Ken says, swiftly dismantling the phone to take out the SIM and GPS.

 

“Leo, Bin,” N speaks up. “Retrace our steps, detouring two streets left and right. Ken and I will follow. Count your steps, and slap Ravi for me when you see him. Regroup at the karaoke place we had crossed in a half an hour.”

 

“On it. I’m taking left,” Bin salutes quickly, before adopting a look of utmost concentration. “One, two, three,” he counts under his breath, walking back the way they had come.

 

“I’ll take right then,” Leo sighs, brushing hair out of his face and glancing at Ken.

 

“Don’t lose count,” Ken warns, sending him off with a worried look.

 

Leo strides ahead with lighter steps, eyes vigilantly scanning their surroundings. He spots Bin 2 minutes into his walk- easily identified by the gaggle of girls whispering around him – and decides to abandon him and move ahead. He passes fruit stalls, and one-dollar shops and marts full of ramen he gets tempted to purchase, but no Ravi. Frustrated, and fearing the worst, he even drops by the nugget stand, almost pushing at 5 miles away from their rendezvous point, and then has to briskly walk back to the karaoke place when he realizes how close he is cutting to their meet up time.

 

Leo is in front of the karaoke place with only seconds to spare, and is glad to find Bin and Ravi huddled together, sharing a stick of cotton candy. N is standing a few steps ahead of them, angled towards Leo, eyes fixed on the pilfered phone, and undoubtedly studying the movement of Leo’s tracker dot.

 

Ravi notices him first and shouts out a slurred greeting and N looks up to spare him a smile.

 

“Where’s Ken?” Leo asks, jogging up to N, and looking around and finding him nowhere.

 

“Singing old songs from the 80s,” Bin pipes up, pointing a finger towards the karaoke place.

 

“After they tracked Ravi clinging to a lamp post near the apothecary, he left N and Ravi here to greet us and decided to go sing for a while. Cotton candy?” he asks, holding out the stick and earning a pitiful whine from Ravi.

 

Leo shakes his head, declining the sweets and instead glances at his watch, suddenly feeling tired. “We should head back to base,” he says softly, disguising his request as a suggestion towards N.

 

“We will, as soon as Kennie is done singing Whitney Houston,” N says adoringly, switching off the phone and pocketing it.

 

“Who summons?” Ken’s cheerful voice pipes up as he skips up to their huddle and shamelessly shoves his hand down N’s _tight_ pants to extract the phone. “Are we leaving?” he asks, coming to stand right next to Leo, hands busy systematically breaking the phone apart.

 

“We should,” N sighs, taking one last look of the vibrant market where they had just been five young men enjoying life’s little delights for a couple of hours. “Come on sleepyhead, you can lean on me,” he says, tugging Ravi up and laughing when Ravi immediately nuzzles into his neck.

 

“I’ll go summon a cab,” Bin volunteers, gathering the leftover cotton candy and shoving it into his mouth at once, and yet somehow not looking gross doing it. “To the stadium, or closer to base?”

 

“Stadium will do,” N nods, pointing out the nearest trashcan to Ken for disposing the phone.

 

In no time they are bundled into a cab, Bin sitting shotgun and navigating, and the rest of them squeezed into the back seat. Ravi is drooling on N, plastered on him from shoulder to knee and clinging like a giant teddy bear, and N happens to be humming in tune with the radio, eyes studying the sights outside. Ken, squeezed between N and Leo, has his hands pressed to his sides, chatting with their driver, with Bin and N, and steadfastedly ignoring Leo.

 

Leo decides that he has had enough and tugs at Ken’s hand till he relaxes, and then entangles his fingers with Ken. Ken smiles slightly, brilliantly, at Leo’s antics, and Leo’s heart collapses for a beat.

 

It is when they are trudging through the field – still hand in hand – and lagging behind the other three that Leo apologizes to him, muttering ‘I am sorry’s and ‘I love you’s behind Ken’s ear. Ken pauses, stands up on his tippy-toes and presses a slobbery kiss against Leo’s cheekbone before skipping forward and jumping on Bin’s back. This time, Leo smiles as he watches them with fondness and not envy, and strides ahead to join in the fun.

 

When they enter the base, Leo immediately knows something is wrong. Different. He holds up a fist to motion for silence and pushes N out, preventing him and the others from coming in. A quick scan reveals that everything looks untouched, but Leo’s instincts say otherwise and so he lowers to the ground, hand reaching out to grab the gun they kept taped behind the flower pot beside the door.

 

“The pot’s empty,” a voice calls from within, and Leo barely flinches when a knife flies past and buries itself on the wall beside the darkened doorway leading to the sleeping quarters.

 

“The agency sent me in,” the voice continues walking closer. “And I removed your weapons from the entryway, just in case.”

 

Out steps a boy wearing glasses and a flannel shirt, and not looking a day over 18.

 

“The agency sent you?” N asks, slinking past Leo to study the boy and N’s own tab held in his hand. “I wasn’t informed.”

 

“I wanted to come by myself and study you guys for a bit,” the boy replies sheepishly, turning his hand over so N can see the code stuck on the band around his hand. “I have been tailing you for the past 3 days.”

 

“That’s impossible,” Ravi says, walking in and removing the knife he had stuck to the wall.

 

“Yeah, we would have caught you stalking,” Bin says, sounding offended.

 

"How do you think you lost your Donald Duck watch?" the boy asks, holding up the watch that Ravi had been whining about losing in a McDonald's run two days.

 

“That's…,” Ken begins, eyes lighting up. “You're-no way! You’re a grifter!”

 

A stunned silence reigns. The academy trains all sorts of agents, from those skilled in weaponry and explosives to those more inclined to digital warfare and behind-the-scenes puppeteering. Despite that, only a handful of trainees are selected to be trained as grifters, as body chameleons adept at blending into any and every situation; the selected are secluded from the rest of the academy and trained in secret. And out of them, only a couple pass the training, the rest assigned to other specializations within weeks.  

 

“Bingo,” the boy shoots Ken a happy grin as N finishes consulting his tab and announces that his story checks out. He steps back, so everyone forms a sort of semicircular huddle and hands his tab into Ken’s outstretched grabby hands.

 

“Yeah, welcome to the team, man,” Ravi says affably. “Sorry I threw a knife at you.”

 

“Yah! Why were you even carrying a knife?” Bin retorts, stepping forward to grasp the boy and pull him into a bro-hug. “ _Where_ were you even carrying a knife?”

 

Ravi blushes, and Ken giggles before waving at the newcomer cutely. Leo only offers a nod, still feeling wary.

 

“These are Ravi, Bin, Ken and Leo,” N offers, gesturing. “I am N, the team lead. Welcome to the team, Agent…,” N trails off, leaving the boy to come up with his codename.

 

“I am Hyuk,” the boy smiles, and N opens his mouth to gush over the boy’s natural cuteness, and shuts it closed at the next words Hyuk speaks. “My name is Han Sanghyuk, but I prefer to go by Hyuk.”

 

Another moment of silence, where everyone exchanges glances. “You do know that you’re not supposed to use your real name, right?” Leo asks.

 

“As soon as this band gets removed, my life will depend on my tracker’s connection with N-sshi,” Hyuk deadpans, holding up his wrist again. “And well, on how we work together as a team in the field later on, and me telling my name is throwing you off?”

 

Ravi steps in front of Leo, smiling easily to diffuse the scathing retort he feels Leo is about to make. “We know you’re a grifter, but do you have any other talents?”

 

“Cat-burglary, acrobatics and accents,” he says immediately, sweet smile hinting at leaving something undisclosed.

 

“That’s good then,” N claps his hand, demanding the room’s attention. “We’re sorry for this awkward welcome, and let’s do a full eval tomorrow, ok?”

 

“Got it,” Hyuk nods before hesitating for a bit. “Do you want to remove my band now?” He asks, extending his hand to N again.

 

“Let’s get to know one another for a few days before we cross that bridge,” N smiles, patting at Hyuk’s shoulder before disappearing into his room.

 

Leo stalks by silently, and Ravi follows after him, yawning and waving cutely.

 

“Leo is…he takes time to adjust. Don’t worry about him,” Bin says, sidling up to Hyuk. “You can sleep on my floor tonight, if you want,” he offers, knowing the sad state of the spare rooms. "But only if you teach me how you nicked his watch."

 

“Or you can take my room, I hardly sleep in it anyway,” Ken offers with a friendly smile, finally looking up from N’s tab. “Come on, I’ll walk you to it.”

 

“I’ll be comfortable enough on the floor,” Hyuk says once they enter a room adorned with a floor full of clothes and a bed stacked with junk food, and Ken makes a valiant attempt at burying the mess under the bed. “You don’t need to go.”

 

“I’m going more for my sake than yours,” Ken says in an undertone, gathering his prized One Piece blanket. “Don’t worry your pretty head about it,” he says aloud, ruffling Hyuk’s hair. “Let’s get to know each other better tomorrow!” Ken waves, turning around to leave, but Hyuk calls him back.

 

“You are the hacker, aren’t you?” Hyuk asked nervously, eyes studying the floor. “Were you reading my academy reports? You have to know, the incident last year, it wasn’t-I didn’t-it’s that…,” he trails off, looking and sounding frustrated.

 

“Get rest,” Ken says kindly, taking pity on the bony boy. “If you wanna talk about misdemeanor records, at least wait till I can send you my 73-page report, first,” he says, smiling easy when Hyuk snorts.

 

“Your past is your past,” N says, popping into the room silently, wearing a fluffy beige robe. “We won’t hold it against you.”

 

“Especially if you throw in random bouts of aegyo,” Ken pipes us, puffing up his cheeks.

 

“I don’t do aegyo,” Hyuk deadpans seriously, feeling lighter when both N and Ken burst into laughter.

 

“You will find out soon enough that aegyo is your currency for getting favors done by the team,” N says slyly, exchanging a meaningful look with Ken.

 

“Are we having a team meeting right here and now,” Bin says, walking in and wrinkling his nose at Ken’s room. “At least can we do at a place free of mildew?”

 

As Bin and Ken start bickering and N lets out a long-suffering sigh, Hyuk cracks a smile. He doesn’t know his new teammates yet, doesn’t know their specializations, or how they spend time between missions, but he knows one thing for sure. N might be giving him a trial period before Hyuk will decide whether to break open the band and activate the tracker connecting him to N, and Leo might need some convincing accepting him into the fold, but Hyuk knows. He knows his choice.

 

He knows that he’s come _home_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!


End file.
